Why Take College English Classes?

You’ve taken high school English classes, even Advanced Placement English classes for which you received college credit. You feel you have a good grasp of the language but understand it’s complex. To be the best you can be, you should consider taking college English classes, even if you have AP credit. StraighterLine has the “why” you need to hear - read more below.

Why College English Classes?

We understand. You took AP English class to earn the credit so you wouldn’t have to take college English classes. This not only saves time, but money. After all, it's another paid course you thought you could skip. But there are some valid reasons why taking a college English class (or two) is important to your success.

You Should Take College English Classes Because:

  • Practice makes perfect. The more you write, the better you become with constructive feedback from experienced English professors. You also learn the citation system used at your college or university. You wouldn’t run a marathon without training first. If you are not yet comfortable in your writing skin, you probably need the practice, considering how much you’ll use this skill in your college career (and beyond—keep reading!).
  • Almost any career requires you write comprehensive, easy to understand reports, emails and presentations. Generally speaking, careers that require college degrees also require a great deal of writing. Effective writing skills are a core function of any executive or research position and you don’t want to be sidelined by making grammatical or other English errors you should have learned in college. Why?
  • Because college writing is different from high school writing. You'll need to significantly up your writing game to successfully complete a thesis, persuasive arguments or provide technical/scientific proof to support analysis and/or research. Your AP teacher may have been amazing (and many are) but they are still dealing your first attempt at college writing. If you did not score a 5 on your AP English exam, you should definitely consider taking college English classes to level up before the amount and type of writing overwhelms you.
  • You’ll be communicating with a more sophisticated audience in college and you’ll want to be able to speak their language. You're no longer writing for high school teachers. Your professors will expect more from you in terms of vocabulary, grammar and fluidity of your work. In order to stand out, you may have to provide written communications to researchers, experts and college officials, not to mention polish term papers, presentations and theses to your professors and peers.
  • In a word: research. Since you're writing more sophisticated and polished technical analytical content, your sources should be vastly different from those you used in high school. You'll need to hone your research skills as you write more complicated, technical papers and a large component of college English classes is teaching you how to find the appropriate resources, use them correctly and form and effectively communicate your research conclusions.
  • Finally, the words you use will not always be simple layperson terms. You'll need to learn and use industry-specific jargon as you dig into your degree field and be able to communicate complex ideas and analytical concepts in writing. If you don’t have your English basics nailed down, you’ll need to increase your writing skills to successfully communicate at these higher levels, both for college professors and potential employers. You want to be able to communicate on their level by the time you’re looking for a job and career.

You see, college English classes don't exist simply to slow down your degree completion or take more tuition from your pocket. They’re designed to help you adapt to college-level research and curriculum, show you how to best communicate in a higher-level environment and make you rock star writer who can effectively communicate at higher levels to decision makers and influencers.

Please take a moment to review online English courses and register for one here.

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